White House to Fight Chronic Absenteeism with Data

Oct 9, 2015

BACK TO SCHOOL: In unsurprising news, more and more research shows that it is likely that students who miss more than 10 percent of school days will struggle academically and drop out. What is troubling about this statistic, however, is that five to seven million American students fall into this category of extreme truancy. To combat the problem, the Obama administration announced that it will publish data on the prevalence of chronic absenteeism at schools nationwide in hopes of giving them the insights (and the public shaming) to do something about it. “Great teachers matter, great principals matter, but they can’t work their magic if our babies aren’t in school,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in the announcement.

BACK TO SCHOOL: In unsurprising news, more and more research shows that it is likely that students who miss more than 10 percent of school days will struggle academically and drop out. What is troubling about this statistic, however, is that five to seven million American students fall into this category of extreme truancy. To combat the problem, the Obama administration announced that it will publish data on the prevalence of chronic absenteeism at schools nationwide in hopes of giving them the insights (and the public shaming) to do something about it. “Great teachers matter, great principals matter, but they can’t work their magic if our babies aren’t in school,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in the announcement.